U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 11, 1999

Dave Eichelberger

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Well, as I have been telling everybody since about an hour ago, I have been trying to get my name on a USGA trophy for 30 years now. And it feels good to have finally done it. It is quite an honor to have my name associated with some of the other guys on this trophy. I am just really appreciative and thank the USGA and the folks of Des Moines, really, for everything they have done.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: I wish I had an answer for that. Unfortunately, that has been kind of the gist of my career for 35 years: A couple of three weeks of great play, followed by a couple of years of mediocrity. Fortunately, the good weeks have been good enough to kind of keep me in there. I have been able to -- let's see. I guess I won, I call it five regular Tour events. There was four events and one team event. And now four senior wins and one team senior win. So I would have been happy with my career up until now, even if I had never won this. And this just seems to, I don't know, really put a good feeling to everything.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: I can do that. 3rd hole, hit a 6-iron shot; excellent shot. Like three feet from the hole for a birdie. The 4th hole, 5 par, sand iron to about six, eight feet; birdie there. The next two holes, 5 and 6, I drove the ball in the rough where really wasn't -- it was deep enough to where I wasn't able to hit it on the green and was in the bunker on both of them and failed to get up-and-down for those two bogeys. But then came back with a birdie at 7. Hit it in close with a sand iron about three feet, four feet, and then also at 9 with the sand wedge to about ten feet. 11 was two putts from the fringe after hitting a 4-wood. 12th hole, hit a 9-iron to about three feet. That hole kind of set up good for me all week. Made three birdies, but just for some reason was -- the tee ball was in such a place and the pin placement, the wind direction, everything just -- I felt like I was going to hit it right close and did actually twice, then once made a long putt. 13, -- 15, hit the best 3-wood I have hit in my life. I think I had like 250 to the front and 257, or something like that, to the flag. And the 3-wood never left the hole; landed right on the front of the right part of the green and just by the hole, and kind of up on the side of the hill. That was best shot I hit all day, really. Then kind of 2-putted from the fringe there. 17, hit the ball in the bunker. Felt like at that point, man, you just wanted to get out of that bunker, and anything on the grass was going to be okay. Got it out up into the fringe and 2-putted for bogey. And that is when I kind of took stock of the situation. Looked around to see what was what. I still thought Ed, though, was 5-under at that point. Apparently he bogeyed 17. Just last hole started to get kind of -- got over the shot. Didn't really know whether I wanted to cut it into the -- or just try to play it into the middle of the green. Wound up kind of playing to the fat of the green, and 2-putt for the par.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: The swing really felt good. On the practice tee warming up, I was hitting the shots kind of the way I wanted to hit them. Stand there, hit driver, say: Okay, I am going to fade it to here; or take a 6-iron, hook it to there. Just everything was feeling really good on the practice tee. Then starting off, hit good shots there early on. So I really felt very confident then with my game there. Even after I had made those two bogeys, I still really felt like I was playing well and just hang in there and birdies would come.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Well, just something that I actually kind of started working on out there in the practice rounds, just playing the fade off the tee, just the grip felt comfortable to do it that way, and never tried to hook the ball one time with the driver all week. Everything aimed down the left side and tried to cut it into the fairway. The only time I would ever feel comfortable trying to hook it a little bit was with the short irons. Everything all the way up to 5-iron was -- I tried to hit with a fade.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Well, just at that point playing 18, just felt like I wanted to go ahead and hit the shots and get the putts and not try to get ahead of myself; don't get caught up in the emotion. Just fundamental stuff. Then after I finished, I was kind of in a state of shock there for a few minutes and started to shake a little bit. But I recovered after a while.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Well, I -- keeping my eye on the leaderboard a little bit. I would look every three or four holes, just there early on. I saw he birdied I think the first hole, and then just kind of just seemed like he never mounted a charge from there. I mean, I don't believe he ever got past 4-under at least that I saw. It was just my luck that he had a bad day, because I kind of really expected that he might be the one that could shoot a 67 or 68 out there today, just it was my turn today.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Oh, today's victory comes a long way to -- I hate to pronounce the best thing ever in my career. I mean I'd like to start winning tournaments now like you can't believe. But -- I am not sure I understand exactly what you asked.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Oh, I have been -- in '63, I mean winning the U.S. Amateur was about the biggest thing I could absolutely dream of. Then 1964 actually came pretty close. I got to the semifinals. There was myself and Mark Hopkins, who was another college player at Houston at that time. And he was in the top bracket with Bill Campbell. And I was in the bottom bracket with Ed Tutweiler. Everybody was kind of thinking -- I mean, it was the two college guys against the two old-timers. I was kind of -- I will have to say felt like it was going to be me and Mark Hopkins in the final. And I'd had a pretty good record against him. So at that time, I figured I was about ready to win this National Amateur there in '64, but it didn't work that way. Ed Tutweiler came up and beat me and Bill Campbell beat Mark Hopkins. So it is kind of hard to, you know, just say I am going to win or I am going to do this or that. You try awfully hard, but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Right before the SENIOR TOUR?

DAVE EICHELBERGER: That was about the low point, I would say, right there. I was actually exempt on the regular Tour all the way up 'til I was 47 or through 1990. And then '91 and '92, I was not exempt on the Tour and couldn't play the SENIOR TOUR. So I was kind of just scraping around, playing in tournaments wherever I could. I played in some Nike events and sectional events and a few regular Tour events, a lot of corporate outings -- that sort of stuff. But it was pretty bleak two years.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: My father definitely was. My mother and father. My college golf coach, Labron Harris, at Oklahoma State. My wife and kids, always been there forever - right there.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: I have not. No. I haven't had a free moment here since. The aftermath here has been worse than the actual doing.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Just when I was coming off the putting green, it was the group in front of us had hit this morning on the first tee. And then so I was walking off the putting green towards the tee, and my caddie, Bobby, said: Man, we have got an extra putter in our bag. Where did that come from? And -- had no idea. We looked -- it was a putter similar to the one that I am using, but just a different model. And no idea. So we just took it out of the bag and gave it to Ron Read there on the tee, which no trouble as long as I had never hit the ball. But it turns out Joe Inman, just as he was coming off the putting green stuck it in the wrong bag and he teed off with no putter. About this time the caddie came running back up the hill to get it, but he was okay since he teed off short a club, so he could have had anything in.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Oh, no. I think the driver and the irons were much better than they had been at any time here this year. The irons were really taking the pressure. I was hitting it in close enough to where I didn't feel like I had to really -- no long lag-putts or anything like that, trying to make par. Irons helped me more than anything.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Oh, yeah, all my life I have been long and kind of wild off the tee 'til here last couple of years I have been short and wild. (laughter) It is getting better though. Like this fade, I am kind of excited about that. I want to go out and see if I can get that to work again next week. Actually hadn't even been able to, oh, for I'd say from 1980 to 19 -- right here about six months ago, I couldn't have made the ball fade if you gave me a million dollars. It is just only right here lately that I have actually been able to do it and then just right here the last month really with any kind of control.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Oh, I don't think that really made any difference at all. It just -- the way things unfolded I was playing well, nobody out in front of us was really doing anything. I kept kind of looking for the guys behind us. Ed got in there pretty good there in the middle. But I don't think it really made any difference, my position, in the field.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: I would say so. I felt like at that time I was -- I guess I was a sophomore in college and was playing pretty good at Oklahoma State. We had a good team and everybody was playing well. There were just a lot of guys that were really good players and I was beating them. I kind of did feel confident at that time and this particular time you are right, I was not as confident as I was before.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Yeah, I mean, I think I would have tried to hit that shot no matter how I stood. I was up there to a place where I knew I could knock it on if I hit a good shot. No, I would have done that no matter how things unfolded.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Oh, no. Just always working on that grip, trying to get the neutral left hand left thumb right down the top of the shaft, Ben Hogan -- right out of the Ben Hogan book. First time it felt like I could hit a fade with it was here just months ago really. But that is the only conscious thing I am working on is always the grip, specifically the left-hand grip, get that just neutral.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Well, actually I moved away from Waco in 1974, lived in Fort Worth for about nine years then moved to a little short time in Florida, six months and then been living in concentrate since about 1986.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Actually I own the house in Waco and that was what I called my residence for quite sometime. But actually if you wanted to find me though you'd come to concentrate.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: In Hawaii mostly. My wife is from Hawaii. We try to go there in the wintertime and hang around, stay with my in-laws, so that makes it nice.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Oh, no. I really didn't even think about it. I was kind of concerned about my ball up there on the green. It kind of rolled back down to the front and I was just wondering what my putt was going to look like, anxious just to get up there to it. But no, it really wasn't any problem.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: The regular Open purse? No, not necessarily so. I think the USGA does a great job with the way they distribute their money; I will stick with whatever they do.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: I am going to be playing, oh, the next, six, seven weeks in the SENIOR TOUR, I am going to Chicago in the morning and play there. Actually I am going to go home Sunday night after Chicago and then come back and play in Minnesota and then Utah and I think I am planning to play everything but maybe possibly not Canada.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: That is hard to say. I can't see how it would do anything but help at this point, but I don't really plan -- I don't think it is going to change my life or anything. Just I like to play a lot of tournaments. That is what I love to do more than anything is play in a golf tournament. I would imagine I will probably keep doing that for some years to come, as long as I am healthy.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: Oh, I would say the Tour wins. Any time I have won some of the Tour events my first one at Milwaukee, the Bay Hill tournament, coming on the SENIOR TOUR winning some things there. Beating Arnie and Jack in that Diners Club tournament there a few years ago, just things associated with some of the wins. I have played in, I guess, thousands of tournaments -- well, I don't know. The regular Tour and the SENIOR TOUR and I managed to win about ten now, so that is kind of spread a little thin there. But those were probably the highlights.

DAVE EICHELBERGER: You are quite welcome.